Welcome to Christmas in July! Have you entered the Blogger’s Prize Pack giveaway?
Hello, Bear Rabbit Bear Crafts readers!! I am so excited to be a part of this Christmas in July Extravaganza. Thank you so much, Melanie, for opening up your blog to me! For those of you who do not know me, let me first introduce myself … my name is Kara and I am a wife and mommy and a crochet addict. On my blog, Petals to Picots, I talk about all things crochet. From free patterns to product reviews, it is one big yarnie celebration.
But today I want to share with you something very different from what I usually do. I want to share this quilt I made to mark my son’s 1st birthday.
I’m not sure if it was because he would be turning 1 soon or maybe because I was feeling he would probably be my last baby, but I was getting very weepy and sentimental while packing up my son’s baby clothes. I just couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them. I went back and forth between deciding to pack them away to save or put them in the donation bin. It seemed silly to just let them sit in a box in the attic. Then I thought … why not make a quilt!
Now, I am by no means a seamstress and this is definitely not a tutorial, but I am so very happy with how it came out that I just had to share!!
Here’s what I did:
First, I went through all the clothes that I wanted to keep and grouped them by color or theme. As you can see, I stayed with a green jungle animal theme for the quilt. I also went through all his receiving blankets and added them into the proper group as well.
Next, I cut 4½-in. by 4½-in. squares from the clothing and blankets. Once I had enough to make a quilt, I laid them out on my table and decided how to position each one. Leaving ¼-in. seam allowance, I sewed the squares together to form rows and then attached the rows together. When that was complete, I layered a large piece of brown fleece, then quilting batting, then the pieced together squares and quilted the layers together by machine. I referenced everywhere from blogs to quilting books to figure out how to do the edging and corners, but I finally figured it out.
This was quite a labor of love for me, but I am so glad I did it. It was so hard to let go of the project that I even made a matching pillow!
Now I have to just think of what to do with the rest of the clothes I can’t part with!!
Thank you again for welcoming me to your celebration!! I hope you stop by my blog to say hi or pop over and visit me on Facebook.
~ Kara
Love it. I am allowed to hold a craft group where I work and a quilter has volunteered to come in and give us quilting lessons – I cannot wait!
I do love your project and the sentiment behind it – not surprised you love it too.
magsiesss
I am so glad you like it! Thanks for your sweet comment!
Kara, what a great idea and how very adventurous of you, having little experience in quilt-making! It looks beautiful. Your talents never cease to amaze me.
Hugs, Melissa
Awwww, Melissa, that is so sweet of you 🙂 Thanks for stopping by and visiting!
Kara, what a great idea and how very adventurous of you, having little experience in quilt-making! It looks beautiful. Your talents never cease to amaze me.
Hugs, Melissa
What a wonderful idea!! I have had a very hard time getting rid of some of my kids clothes. Making a quilt out of them is just a heartwarming idea!:)
Thanks Kadie! I guess we are a bunch of sentimental ladies when it comes to our babies 🙂
Beautiful quilt, Thanks for sharing!
Thank you, and thanks for popping by to visit!
Can I just say… AWWWWW! LOVE this idea, it’s so sweet, and your quilt turned out beautiful. Filing this idea away for the future. 🙂
Thanks Adrianne! You could totally rock this idea and you have the sewing knowledge to make it a real tutorial 🙂
It is always best when it is a labor of love
I totally agree. I am so happy that you stopped by to check it out 🙂
An extra special quilt, Kara!!! It looks FABULOUS and is one you will always treasure!!! The pillow looks great, too…
Super sweet and beautifully created! Very special!